Promise
by Vendelyn Silverhawk
Summary: Tony and Ziva finally entertain the thought of a life together and for a few years things are more than perfect. But then the potential of their happy life is shattered and everyone's favorite bow-tie wearing Time Lord is too late to save them, leaving him in the ruin of their dream to take care of the one thing left behind; their daughter. NOT SLASH.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This story was co-written with a close friend of mine, who would proffer not to be named but should be honored nonetheless; Mary, aka Mrs. DiNozzo, you are a wonderful purveyor of fluff, which only makes the tragedy of this story more poignant. Thank you.**

They sat together, alone in their own little words, but in reality just secluded in the safety of the break room's vibrant, orange walls. It's rare they are this open, this candid with each other but once the topic of mothers was breached, both provoked by his recently discovered images, the words streamed out without filter. Each needed the solace only the other, one who had experienced such a similar pain and who knew them so well, could provide and at this point each were also taking freely.

Neither could anticipate that this would be the last time they saw the other, or that the irony would be clearly apparent rather than being delayed by grief or sadness or anger or disbelief. Conversation flowed as it never had, with words such as "love," "warmth," and "inspiration," thrown around with longing looks and pensive glances filled with more meaning than either would care to admit.

Mothers. Such was the topic, and it was a touchy one with both, but Tony couldn't fully understand just what that word meant to Ziva, who herself was a woman, and felt more kinship with the word than Tony ever could. For Ziva it wasn't just something lost, a distant, hazy memory filled with movie reels and soft warm light and a female's voice cooing words of love. To her, it was a possibility, a legacy, and a role that she so desperately wanted to fill.

His face was buried in the crook of her neck while his hand traveled in soothing patterns along her back, fingers indulging in the silky feel of her blouse.

"I just hope she would have been proud of me, yah know? That she wouldn't think sitting here alone at 42 didn't make me a complete failure." he muttered.

"Tony," she whispered in response, slowly pulling back to make eye contact, cupping his face with her hands, "You are not a failure, you have saved countless lives, saved me, and you. Are. Not. Alone."

Four words, so completely more significant than the cliché three that peppered many of Tony's favorite movies. When he was little he had dreamed of being in a movie, being the star of his own film, but being the star of his own life was something his mother had always told him was infinitely better. But the star never stayed single past 28. It was just a cinema rule.

Ziva had said he wasn't a failure, though. And there was no way some flimsy rule would dare tell Ziva that she was wrong.

"It's impossible to feel alone now- you're practically sitting on me." Tony's attempt to break the ice was lost when Ziva actually did move across all the way, so that she was sitting in his lap much as a child would, her arms wrapped around his neck.

"Ever the clown." she teased back, "But I'm sure that's just one of the things she loved about you, one of the things everyone who knows you does."

"You mean that?" he questioned, mildly stunned by her statement.

"Yes." she stated simply, comfortingly.

That only made his small smile grow. "You will be an amazing mother yourself one day." he remarked.

"Perhaps, and you a lovely father." she said trying to mask her astonishment. "But for now we must return to work. Shall we?" she asked as she extended her hand.

"Let's go Mummy Dearest." he retorted as they walked out together.


	2. Chapter 2

_3 Years Later_

He was sipping coffee by the window when the first cries reached his ears.

"Daddy, Daddy!" Their little one's voice called out, "Look what I made for you today."

"What is it?" Tony turned around with a smile on his face, delighted by the sheer prospect of seeing his daughter again. Ziva had left to pick her up from school not twenty minutes ago, leaving Tony with twenty minutes to miss her and wonder if she was ok, if the teacher had given them any homework, if the other kids had been nice- there had been a nasty incident last week when she had been picked on for wearing his baseball cap for show and tell and there had been some FBI munchkins in the vicinity.

But that was all ok, because Willow was home and she had a gift for him, so he turned-

To feel his blood run cold, and lose all feeling in his hand and have his coffee drop to the floor with a crash that rattled his bones, because his daughter- oh god, his daughter…

"Hi Daddy." She whispered, voice strained. He wondered how she had managed to sound so happy when she called out earlier, when the crazed blonde man whose form was constantly shifting from flesh to bone- like an x-ray, Tony thought numbly- had undoubtedly had his strange weapon to her head. A screwdriver? Or… gun? He couldn't tell, only that it was pointed at his baby's head and she was crying and oh god where was Ziva?!

It was then that he saw the pool of rich, red blood beginning to form in the corner of the doorway, his beloved wives thick chocolate locks becoming coated in the sticky substance. He could see them, and one pale hand, lying on the floor, the rest of her body out of sight. Oh god…

"What a beautiful family, Very _Special_ Agent DiNozzo." The evil man crooned, "Such a shame really."

The tears were beginning to flow steadily down their baby's face…

"NOOOOOO!" He screamed as he woke with a start.

"Tony, Tony calm down it was all a dream," Ziva whispered as she held him in their bed. "Just a dream, just a dream, I am fine, the baby is fine my love, and so are you. We. Are. All. Fine. "

"I had… a dream. A horrible dream. Oh God, Ziva- it was like something out of a cheesy sci-fi movie, but it felt so real, and you, and Willow… you were…" Tony choked on his own words, burying his face in the crook of his wife's neck and tangling his hands in her silky hair to assure himself that she was real, that there was no blood, no skeleton-man, no darkness aside from the literal lack of light in their bedroom.

"Shhhh," she cooed, and held his head in her hands, rocking him back and forth. He sighed into her mocha-colored skin and when she kissed his lips she knew he was completely reassured. Nothing could fake Ziva's kiss. He kissed her back, squeezed her shoulder, and fell back against the pillows.

"No more horror movies before bed, ok?" She said as she snuggled against him.

"Definitely." He agreed.

It didn't take long for him to drift off again in his wife's warm embrace, for on Ziva's part her blood was cold, for the knowledge weighed so heavily on her mind that she could not sleep even if she had gone a hundred days with her eyes wide open.

She hated the fear he carried every day, the idea of their daughter, the light of their lives, losing one of them and being forced into the childhood each of them had been forced to endure was unbearable. Internally, Ziva had been afraid of such since they first found out they were expecting Willow, just a few short months after exchanging their vows. Thankfully though, they had never transpired into anything like the nightmares her husband had been facing and so the issue faded for her.

But, everything had changed just a few short weeks ago when they had found themselves in an exceptionally dangerous situation, a lone crazed gunman attempting to take her out, only to be rescued at the last minute by Tony, her own knight in shining armor. Although both had remained unscathed he had been plagued with horridly vivid nightmares since then of her being taken away, himself forced into the same situation as his own father despite the fact that his life could have now qualified to be the unwritten ending of a Nicholas Sparks novel. One of the ridiculously happy ones in which the main characters were invincible and love actually won.

But of course, his life wasn't actually a Nicholas Sparks novel. And the only thing that people really wanted to read was the chapter before the two-page happy ending, in which the reader's heart was torn out and it seemed as though the world would never be cheerful again.


	3. Chapter 3

Tony grabbed for his wife's hand as the monsters came pouring out of the portal, because he knew that the end was near and he couldn't face it without her. He couldn't die alone, any more than he could leave her alone.

"Tony!" She screamed from below him in the rapidly water-filling chamber. There was blood pouring from a gash on her forehead and her long hair was tangled and wild and strung together with clumps of the dried red substance. She looked worse than she had in Somalia, but at least back then there had been a semblance of hope in her eyes when she saw him. Now there was just cool acceptance when she reached up to take his sweat-soaked hand.

"Hold on!" He grunted with effort as he hauled her up along the upturned stairwell and she crawled along the banister, using the bars to support herself as she climbed to him. Their entire house had been so banged up and thrown in so many directions that he couldn't tell which way the stairs were supposed to go, only that they were the wrong way and furniture and monster corpses had trapped his wife at what was now their bottom.

When at last she reached him a small smile graced her face, and they both took a hushed, breathless moment to kiss and embrace because they knew it would be the last time. Ziva's hand left bloodstains on his cheeks when she touched him, but it couldn't change his appearance over much. He knew that in his torn, ragged clothing and covered as he was in clawmarks and bruises he didn't look much better than her.

"Where is Willow?" Ziva asked as they rushed along the upside down hallway, smashed pictures littering the floor as they dodged light fixtures and rushed towards the back of the house. Neither truly thought they could reach there before the monsters found them or just decided to destroy the whole house, but maybe Tony's guns had scared them enough for them to take it slow.

"In the nursery- I barricaded the door. C'mon!" Tony said, and a lightning bolt of fear lept into Ziva's heart. Her baby was all alone with monsters in the house. Who knew if she was even still alive, after all of the jostling the house had gone through, rolling through the open field like an overturned car?

This place, with its bright yellow walls and middle-eastern inspired architecture, the rich colors and rugs and light fixtures that they had put in when they first moved here, had once been their dream home. It had been the world they would raise their daughter in, away from the danger of their pasts. But now it was overrun with things more horrible than what they had left behind, and this time there was no team to help them.

A shudder shook the entire house, so hard that they were thrown off-balance. Tony landed hard against a wall, but gathered himself enough to catch Ziva in his arms and protect her from the raining glass. Roaring in his ears and cutting his skin and dripping from every corner, danger surrounded them, but in that moment their hearts beat next to each other and Tony allowed himself one minute of illusion.

"Willow." Ziva's wide eyes pulled him from his self-indulgent fantasy, and at last forced him to see the truth. The odds were that they would die here, today, facing a threat that no one else on planet earth could dream existed. This was the last time he would ever hold his beautiful wife in his arms, or kiss her hair away from her face, and tell her how beautiful she was even though it would break his heart to admit it because that meant he really believe the end was near.

"You're beautiful." He whispered. Ziva stared at him in disbelief, as if wondering how he could possibly say something like when they were in this situation. She understood, though, and she cried for it.

"And you are wonderful." She replied, tears streaking blood down her face. She hiccuped on the end of her words, because she knew in that moment when the growls and snarls below overlapped her words that they would never reach the nursery.

By the time the Chitauri reached the barricaded stairwell, they had already sent a team around to the back of the house where the kitchen, bedrooms, and nursery were waiting. They breached the doors easily and swatted away the fleshbags that tried to keep them from their prize, which they tore from its place with clawed fingers, confident that they had decimated the dwelling and its inhabitants beyond repair. The bloodthirsty, pitiless monsters left the house with cracked glass and blood dripping from the walls, debris the only furnishing and dread the only feeling lingering.

They believed that they had left only death in their wake, and in a sense they had. They had killed the hope the house had once held for its inhabitants, and torn apart the love that once knitted two of the brightest souls in the universe together, and left behind nothing but the ruin of dashed dreams and broken potential.


	4. Chapter 4

The warped sound of a car trying to start reverberated out throughout the ruin an indeterminable amount of time later, when the sky was dark and shadows cast ebony bloodstains on the floor. Creaking broke the hushed silence of the house, just as the movement of a warm body broke the still reverie that had descended upon it, much as sleep does the castle in a faeri tale, once the princess has left and it is nothing but a relic of a since-told story, a prop no longer needed.

Footsteps crunched against the broken glass of the hallway when the figure left the large blue box that had appeared from thin air in the middle of the house. The person in question didn't notice the crunching until there was a larger crack than the rest- the sound of something almost whole being broken for the second time, but still not being crushed. Looking down, sad eyes that normally held such a childish hope coupled with the sadness of a hundred years alone, saw a picture frame beneath his shoe. He stepped back, but immediately wished that he hadn't because it revealed the last thing he wanted to see.

It was a family portrait. Well, picture, of a beautiful woman with sweeping caramel colored hair and eyes that shone like twin stars, soft lips that reminded him of satin and roses on her cheeks, a man with short cropped hair and a smile that radiated warmth, and- worst of all- a child, a little girl balanced on her mother's lap even though her smile was a replica of her father's.

_ One thing I'll never get._ The stranger thought as he bent down, tracing the cracks in the glass that had spider webbed with his step, breaking apart the carefully constructed image of happiness that he had no doubt had translated to real life.

The sound of crying coming from the back of the house broke him from his reverie, and he was forced to lift his eyes from the picture- and the memories- to address this new development. He stopped to hand the picture back on the wall before he headed toward the source of the crying. That way, if anyone did find this place, they would see what it once was. Maybe then he wouldn't be the only one to remember them, whoever they were. He was already burdened with the memories of so many lost, and it was always worse when those memories were happy ones.

To the average eye, he didn't look like a time traveler, or an alien, but there was something about him- aside from the blue box, and his presence in an upside down house that looked like a bloody tornado had rolled through- that would make him impossible to miss. Thick brown hair brushed the back of his neck and a red bow tie was apparent against the brown jacket and pinstriped pants, long-fingered hands brushed awkwardly against the walls, as if he was always unsure what to do with them. His face was the most striking trait, though, because even though it was not handsome, or ugly, it could be clearly described in one word- or rather, on feeling, conveyed by a few words. It was tragic, and sad, but hopeful, and inquisitive, and bright, and made one imagine that if he was alone in the rain and he looked at you with no hope at all in his eyes, he would resemble a lost, wet puppy begging to be taken home and loved. There was nothing menacing about him, because in the presence of such devastation without its makers, he couldn't feel angry. There was nothing to blame before him, and therefore he could only be sad as he walked through one family's broken dream.

The source of the crying was behind a thick white door, sporting a broken, bloody sign that read "Willow's Room" in beautifully scripted Hebrew. All he had to do was sonic the handle in order to push the door open despite the furniture piled behind it, but his screwdriver couldn't clear the floor for him. The pieces of a splintered cradle littered one corner, a broken bookshelf had strewn childrens' books and toys across the floor. An animal mobile hung from the ceiling by a thread.

"Mommy?" The voice was so small, so lyrical and beautiful that the man could hear her mother's voice in it, even though he had never heard her before, that he felt his hearts throbbing painfully.

"Mummy's gone." He whispered, kneeling down beside the child curled in the back of the closet, a stuffed rabbit clutched in her tiny, mocha-colored hands. She stared at him with dark, dark eyes peering out from tear-stained cheeks cheeks and a dust-covered face.

"Who are you? Where is mommy and daddy?" the girl asked, looking as though she was going to cry again, now that the shock of a stranger in her house had worn off. The man reached forward, wrapping his arms around the tiny girl and picking her up in her pink flower nightgown, rabbit smothered against her chest.

"Mummy and daddy are gone, sweetheart, but everything will be OK." He promised, but his voice held only enough conviction to fool the child. He knew that everything would be OK, but at the same time, for this girl nothing would ever be OK again. "I'm The Doctor, and I'm here to make things better."

"Promise?" She asked, tiny hands clutching his jacket tightly. Her face was so open, so trusting, because she didn't understand yet.

"Promise." He whispered, because what else could he do? He always promised, and no matter what happened, he kept his word, because no matter what he had been through it was his job to take the cares of the worlds upon his own shoulders, and promise a brighter day, because that was a doctor's job; to make things alright again.

**A/N- OK, so... i don't know if any of you are out there (reviewers) but if you are, i was considering doing a continuation of this story as a longer fic. whatever the date at the top for this chapter update says, i check my fanfiction regularly so any reviews will be seen, be they two days from now, or two years. Review if you think that a longer fic would be something you would read, centering around The Doctor and Willow's life with him, maybe meeting the team again or doing some timey-wimey stuff around the time of her parent's death. So please review and tell me your opinions! If no one reviews, it means no one has interest in reading the story, therefore my incentive to write kind of... curls up into a little ball and shrivels and dies.**

**Thank you for your support, your faithful author,**

**V.S.**


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